Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Ladies, Gentlemen, Developers of EVE Online,

According to the story behind EVE, the explanation of the war declaration system is that the group which declares war (Offender) pays Concord to "look the other way" instead of intervening during a fight against their target (Defendant).

In theory, war in EVE is a fight between two groups to settle differences, claim territory (See: Player Owned Stations), or disrupt supply lines. A group declares war by paying Concord to prevent intervention, as well preventing standings loss and interference from system defenses.

In practice, it does get used as it was intended. However, there's a large and ugly side to it, and that is War Mongering.

War Mongering is a term used to describe the act of declaring war onto a selected weak (often Industrial) Defendant for the sake of carnage and/or ransoms; piracy, really, but instead of being outlaws, they dodge the law through bribes. By being able to select their targets, they can avoid confrontation with stronger groups, and then prey on their target until they've had their fill, or until the Defendant pays a ransom. In short, lots of benefit, little consequence.

To me, and many others, this represents a broken aspect of EVE Online.

Of course, I've heard plenty of arguments that claim that this is not broken. A Defendant can build up a PVP wing or hire Mercenaries. True, but the Offender merely avoids the patrols, and ambushes the Miners/Haulers/Newbies of the Defendant. Given that most War Mongers don't have any of these, the Defendant cannot do the same to the Offender.

You could just pay them off, but they'll be back again, this time with money to fuel their effort, so why bother? You could also avoid confrontation, but what this usually means is avoid playing EVE Online, since sitting at a station is about as boring as it gets. Truthfully, I've seen players quit the game entirely because of War Mongers, and while the Mongers and PVPers view that as an achievement, CCP is the one losing.

Wars are justified by the costs associated; you pay Concord, and a bigger Defendant will cost more, thus justifying your ability to terrorize a target, no matter the reason behind it. CCP changed this system to balance the costs more accurately, fluctuating with the population of the Defendant. However, the cost is still pathetically low; 50mil isk + extra for every member above 50. Intially, that's 1/10th of a Plex, and at most, it'll cost you a whole plex (the costs cap at 500mil). This is hardly a deterrent.

Onto the solution; allow Defendants to counter-bribe Concord. It's as simple as that. They would need to pay the same amount as the Offender initially. Then, a bidding system after the initial payments, with increments of 50mil, so that the Offender and Defendant can war with their wallets before their ships. Reset the bid timer every time a new bid is placed to allow time for each side to respond, maybe 6, 12, at most 24 hours.

If the Offender succeeds at outbidding the Defendant, the next week's cost is the default; again, the Defendant will be offered to counter this cost, and the bidding would restart. If the Defendant succeeds at outbidding the Offender, the war is null and void. Regardless of who wins the bids, both sides pay their bids, ensuring the winner gains an advantage for having spent so much, and the loser is not simply pushing the costs to have their opponent pay more.

There's plenty of advantages to this, among which this provides a major isk sink. This is a simple request, and a logical one; after all, if an Offender can pay Concord to look away, why can't a Defendant pay Concord to protect him?

Regards,
Lex Azevedo
EVE Online Player for over 7 years

I couldn't agree more.

I disagree with your entire premise but: You lose all the isk on any bid regardless if you win or not. If you think about how someone might game the system, you will understand why.

Interesting idea; an improvement would be to just make both sides pay and if the defender wins the bid, he'll receive his money back.

+1, makes sense, solves problems.

This is a pretty elegant solution to this problem. Deals with the problem, makes the risk vs the reward about where it should be in a non-violent way. It as an ISK sink is just a fantastic bonus.

May I please have your stuff when you leave?

Its relatively easy to corp hop, and now with dual training, I have a 2nd toon on each of my accounts that i can use when my main toon for each account gets wardecced.

And then I've got 1 semi trained toon still in an NPC corp

New players should not be losing their stuff - war decced = don't undock in an indy ship.

Switch to a non wardecced toon for that stuff

Precisely what inspired me to come up with this solution.

Love it!

I know a group of Whores who would wind up paying through the nose!

Or more likely not, as they would be getting bid up so high it wouldn't be worth it to them.

The anger and frustration this would cause these victimizers is priceless. Why should their victims be the ones to quit EVE in frustration. If they don't like being unable to PvP on PvEers at bargain-basement prices, then tough, they can go find another game that let's them be the bullies they so desire to be. Or they can grow a pair and learn to PvP against other actual PvPers.

Nope. Problem is that wardecs dec the corp, not the players. If all the members leave the corp, then the corp is destroyed---they win the war. Money well spent. The system proposed gives the decced corp a reasonable way to fight without combat pilots. It expands the concept of warfare to the other areas of EVE.